Formerly Called Two Letdowns, One Night but Now Called Weird Foods I Ate as a Kid
Velveeta met its match in Rotel
Do you remember in the early 1990’s when Velveeta did the unthinkable and partnered with salsa? Of all foods! Velveeta! The all-American non-cheese food! In the commercial, a mom with a permed mushroom cut frustratedly throws out a jar of something that could be Cheez Whiz or the queso you find in the chip aisle. Anyway, she is frustrated. So frustrated that she tosses a GLASS jar of cheese dip over her shoulder–and it could have landed ANYWHERE. That’s how frustrated she is! Goodbye cheese dip and hello cheesy and broken glass disaster! I had a boyfriend who would do things like this. We went to the Dairy Queen once and he got mad during the ordering process so when we walked out to the car, as I was enjoying my Oreo Blizzard, he threw his Peanut Buster Parfait on the ground. The whole thing! Just launched it and then got in the car. I remember thinking I have to be stuck in a car with a guy who might have been mad before but he’s really going to be hurting when he sees me enjoying this Blizzard and he’s empty handed.
Anyway, the mushroom cut mom takes out a brick of Velveeta and effortlessly cuts it into cubes. First of all. Impossible. Have you ever tried to cut Velveeta? It’s like cutting, well, a log of Velveeta. It’s sticky and pasty and gets all over everything and if it gets one degree below refrigerator temperature, it’s basically more of a caulking agent than a cheese food.
I grew up in a Velveeta household. We did not buy other cheeses. I was very rarely exposed to other types of cheese unless out at a restaurant, eating at a friend’s house, or if we were having tacos or lasagne. All other meals that called for cheese were satisfied with Velveeta. When grilled cheese sandwiches were served for school lunch, I fully rejected them, knowing the cheese was not Velveeta, and to my trained tongue, whatever was plastered between the bread was not made for a grilled cheese.
We had a very good cheese slicer at my house that I think was made especially for Velveeta so I didn’t have to endure the difficult conditions of trying to cut Velveeta with a knife. I would never even THINK to use a knife. If the Velveeta slicer was dirty, well then no Velveeta for me. In my opinion there is only one way to extract a gummy slice from the only cheese product that comes in what some might call a log, others, a brick. It’s also one of few cheese products sold on the shelves of the grocery store–not in the refrigerator section. Just sitting on the shelf at any old temperature, right next to other dried, non-perishable goods. A big orange gummy brick.
We also had a special Tupperware container for the Velveeta. Velveeta must have been making quite a mark on this country to get its own special Tupperware. Cereal had a special Tupperware, but that was ALL cereal, not just one kind.
Back to the commercial. The mother cubes the Velveeta, as I said, with a knife, again, ridiculous, and then she does the next impossible thing: She raises the cutting board and the cubes of Velveeta ROLL down into a bowl as if they were Legos, weightless and with no resistance. Even if these cubes of Velveeta were frozen and therefore not sticking at all to the cutting board, the weight of Velveeta would make them roll far less gracefully, and once in the bowl, a mega chunk would take shape. She dumps a jar of salsa on the cheese cubes, throws it in the microwave, and then takes out a beautiful bowl of perfectly creamy cheese dip. And her family loves it.
Fast forward to 2022. I was 41 years old and had not had a drop of Velveeta in at least 20 years, but I was pregnant and indulging in all my childhood favorites. Naturally, Velveeta queso came to mind. Oh how I had enjoyed it as a child! After bowling on a Saturday or playing in the snow on a cold North Dakota day. My mom would sometimes add leftover taco meat into the Velveeta + Rotel mixture to make it even more yummy. I couldn’t wait to revisit what I had remembered to be such a delicious treat.
The Bachelor was airing at the start of 2022 and to celebrate the first episode, I decided Velveeta queso would be the perfect dish to enjoy for my personal viewing party.
Brace yourself. The price of Velveeta has gone up significantly. I guess I can’t say for sure how much it cost when I was enjoying it in meals and alone after school as a little chubette in the 90’s, but I’m sure it was affordable because my mom was a teacher and we weren’t exactly living the highlife. A brick of Velveeta today is going for around $7.50. You can get the Walmart brand for about $4 but I don’t know if it’s safe to ingest a generic version of an already very questionable product which may or may not be considered food.
I got home from the store and immediately put the Velveeta in the fridge, knowing it would be much easier to cut if cooled, and then put the rest of the groceries away, took a quick shower, and returned to the kitchen to make my dip.
I took the Velveeta from the fridge and opened the oblong box, revealing a silver, space sealed package. I peeled the wrapper apart and there was the Velveeta. I hadn’t seen it for thirty years. There was a sheen to it I didn’t remember, and when I handled it, there was almost a silky feeling, like it was wearing a paraffin mask. Still, I forged ahead, determined to enjoy one of my childhood favorites.
As I got to cutting it, with a cheese slicer and not a knife, I couldn’t get over the silkiness and the strange iridescence on the surface. I started to lose my appetite but chalked it up to pregnancy. Even after I had prepared it, melted it with the salsa, there was still something different. I dipped a few chips into the dip and while the flavor was mostly good, there was something off with the texture. The dip cooled quickly making the dip thicker and almost iridescent. I stirred it a little with a chip and noticed that it didn’t just run back into place. When you stir hot fudge, you can make a little canal but then the two sides flood back together and even out. This new Velveeta did not do that and after only a few chips, I couldn’t bring myself to eat it and ended up dumping the whole bowl into the trash.
Episode 1 of The Bachelor was also a disappointment. ———————————————————————————————————————————————-UPDATED April 7, 2026.
The ending of this story has to change. I said some terrible things about Clayton, the bachelor, that I’ve deleted. I am listening to a podcast called “Love Trapped.” Its the best podcast I’ve heard in a really long time. I’m just SO over murders. I can’t take it anymore. It’s hard to find something mysterious and suspenseful that doesn’t go completely off the rails. “Love Trapped” involves a scandalous story that happened to Clayton the Bachelor. I hadn’t heard of it before, and I won’t give it away. But the podcast has a lot of Clayton and I feel terrible for judging him based on what the Bachelor showed. I’m really sorry to anyone who saw this when I was nasty to Clayton. Listen to “Love Trapped.”